Senior Digital Content Leader

Summary

About Michael Kress

I am an award-winning, senior-level content director and digital strategist with a successful track record launching, scaling, and managing important initiatives. Skilled at motivating and leading high-performing digital teams with limited resources and aggressive goals.

• Highly innovative in digital, print, video, social media, mobile, and apps, with experience in media, agencies, brands, and nonprofits. • Transforms brands by launching new products to grow audience and revenue. • Experience in health, parenting, lifestyle, education, and personal finance categories in the fields of journalism, publishing, and content marketing. • Adapts quickly and comfortably to change and pivots easily and nimbly.• Adept at engaging hard-to-reach audiences.

I currently work at Teach For America as senior managing director of editorial strategy. Previously, I led several digital and print editorial teams and worked as a consultant to a wide-range of clients, offering editorial leadership, content strategy, content marketing assistance, and more.

Editorial Director, Davler Media

Led award-winning editorial team in publishing the NYMetroParents.com website and seven local monthly parenting magazines (Big Apple Parent, Brooklyn Parent, Queens Parent, Westchester Parent, Rockland Parent, and two Long Island Parent editions for Nassau and Suffolk counties). Created editorial calendar for web and print, oversee production, set and execute on quantitative and qualitative goals, and lead division-wide shift to digital focus. Serve as de facto product manager, working with technology, design and other stakeholders on site redesign, CMS upgrades, and other projects; and as de facto digital audience-development director, analyzing traffic and educating others on analytics, creating programs to grow traffic and engagement, and working with sales team on revenue generation.

Executive Editor, Parents.com, Meredith

• Led all aspects of editorial development, managed 7-person editorial staff, and oversee content budget for premier parenting website that averages 10.5 million monthly users (via Omniture). • Grew Parents Network from #13 to #5 in comScore’s Family & Parenting category, including more than 30% year-over-year expansion in the past 12 months. • Managed creation of 300 how-to videos per year and grew organic (unpaid) video views to over 500K per month. • Transformed Parents into the category leader in social media, with more than 1.4 million Facebook “likes,” more than 873K Twitter followers, and more than 137K Pinterest followers. Launched and grew new presences on Tumblr, Flipboard, and Instagram. • Boosted content production from a few dozen to more than 500 articles, slideshows, blog posts, videos, and quizzes per month. • Managed product releases, working closely with the technology, design, sales, and audience engagement teams to create traffic- and revenue-building tools and apps. • Led major site relaunch/redesign project, which debuted in July 2012. Became first site in our category to be responsive, leading to more than 120% year-over-year mobile traffic growth. • Maximized revenue opportunities by creating sponsored programs, launching highly sellable new initiatives, and educating sellers on upcoming Parents.com projects of interest to advertisers. • Guaranteed that Parents.com reflected the quality and vision of the Parents magazine brand as well as digital best practices, serving users and business needs simultaneously.

June 2005 - June 2010

VP, Editorial & Managing Editor, Beliefnet.com / News Corp. Digital

• Developed and implemented editorial strategy in coordination with companywide goals and business objectives, and set short- and long-term goals for editorial team. • Directed editorial development and managed 12-person content and community staff for a news and lifestyle website that attracts 3 million unique visitors per month and has received multiple awards, including a National Magazine Award, an Online Journalism Award, and several Webby Awards. • Managed editorial budget, including staffing decisions, 40+ bloggers, dozens of freelance writers, and partners/vendors.

September 1997 - August 2006

Freelance Writer, Various Publications

Published in Newsweek, The Boston Globe, The Dallas Morning News, Slate.com, Salon.com, The Forward, and many other leading websites, magazines, and newspapers.

September 2001 - June 2005

Editor-In-Chief, MyJewishLearning.com

• Head of content for award-winning, mass-market educational website. • Conceived site architecture, editorial approach, brand voice, and user experience, shepherding the site from idea to reality. • Managed all aspects of the editorial process: set editorial policy; negotiated content agreements; designed content approach; oversaw budget; set scope of coverage.

Blog

The Other Heroes of 'Selma'

Martin Luther King Jr. understood the essential role the media played in making his dream a reality.

I finally got around to seeing Selma and was moved, inspired, and as baffled as anyone else by its relative snubbing by the Oscars. I’ll leave the historical, political, and cinematic commentary to others for now, as I want to focus on a little-discussed but, in my mind, absolutely essential aspect of the story: the role of the press. Selma was nothing short of a love letter to the media. In these days in which our industry is challenged and hurting, it’s worth contemplating that for a few...